I'm having the worst trouble trying to integrate seated lotus posture into my routine and I am about out of options - my back seems to generally be weak and I need all the help I can get to prevent terrible pain from developing.

Does anyone have recommendations for meditation cushions? I am using a wool-filled one right now, and I wonder if perhaps it is not helping me in the way it should. I'm willing to give one last try to the sitting posture on a new cushion, so what do you all suggest?

Thanks! Any general tips on sitting half lotus, etc. are also great.

Gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain:these conditions among human beings are inconstant,impermanent, subject to change.

You might want to look at changing your posture. I sit in basic cross-legged posture or burmese (legs bent at knees but not overlapping).I use a futon-style chair cushion doubled over and a thin afghan prayer rug.All the best,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

If you are experiencing back pain to this degree then I think a different cushion will not make much difference, a stool probably won't help either.

Different cushions might help with your knees but I assume you're not having any issues with your knees? You are probably better off establishing a good yoga/exercise routine that emphasises strengthening your back, I think strengthening stomach muscles also has an affect on your back.

"Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment." - Ajahn Chah"When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. When we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy." - Ajahn Chah"Know and watch your heart. It’s pure but emotions come to colour it." — Ajahn Chah

Goofaholix wrote:If you are experiencing back pain to this degree then I think a different cushion will not make much difference, a stool probably won't help either.

Different cushions might help with your knees but I assume you're not having any issues with your knees? You are probably better off establishing a good yoga/exercise routine that emphasises strengthening your back, I think strengthening stomach muscles also has an affect on your back.

I think that it would be of help, in combination with other exercises and such. Occasionally I will hit a sweet spot with my wool cushion and really sink in.

Gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain:these conditions among human beings are inconstant,impermanent, subject to change.

I have tried various things including phone books, cotton zafus, rolled up blankets, couch cushions etc and finally got a buckwheat zafu and absolutely love it. Really solid and firm which i think allows your leg and back muscles to relax a bit. I'll second the earlier recommend of the burmese posture as well.

"When you meditate, don't send your mind outside. Don't fasten onto any knowledge at all. Whatever knowledge you've gained from books or teachers, don't bring it in to complicate things. Cut away all preoccupations, and then as you meditate let all your knowledge come from what's going on in the mind. When the mind is quiet, you'll know it for yourself. But you have to keep meditating a lot. When the time comes for things to develop, they'll develop on their own. Whatever you know, have it come from your own mind.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... eleft.html

I use something like this (in my case, the edges of the seat are rounded in back):

The cushion is easily removable, and the legs fold against the seat so that it can be stored easily; it even fits in a backpack.

Knees and ankles aren't put under undue stress, and if you look closely you can see that the bottoms of the legs are curved. This allows the hips to rotate to their optimum angle for back support; by maintaining tone in the lower torso (back and abdominal muscles supporting the spine) one can sit for quite a while.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]

I have been using a firm reading pillow lying on it's back, which has worked okay. I can't find them that firm anymore and the filler in the area I sit is getting irreparably compressed, so I am actually awaiting the arrival of a Cosmic Cushion / Zabuton set. It has a built in angle to help rotate your hips forward which I know helps my lower back. I'll let you know once I get it. It would be nice if there were some stores that sold various cushions so they could be tested.